Digital Realty Trust, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.22 (NYSE:DLR)

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 7th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be given a dividend of 1.22 per share by the real estate investment trust on Monday, September 30th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th.

Digital Realty Trust has a payout ratio of 372.5% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Digital Realty Trust to earn $7.08 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $4.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 68.9%.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Up 1.1 %

NYSE DLR opened at $158.42 on Thursday. Digital Realty Trust has a 52 week low of $113.94 and a 52 week high of $162.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $49.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.01, a PEG ratio of 4.73 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a quick ratio of 1.78, a current ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The company has a fifty day moving average of $151.51 and a two-hundred day moving average of $146.67.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($1.43). The firm had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.38 billion. Digital Realty Trust had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 5.93%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.68 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Digital Realty Trust will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.17% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Digital Realty Trust from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 12th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $144.00 to $170.00 in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. Argus lowered shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $150.00 to $175.00 in a research note on Friday, June 28th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Digital Realty Trust from $123.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Digital Realty Trust presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $154.00.

Digital Realty Trust Company Profile

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges.